Are You Eating the Unleavened Bread of Life?

We'd also like to welcome our visitors and guests. Very nice to have you with us here on this holy day, this first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, one of God's commanded assemblies. One of his divine appointments is what the Hebrew means there in Leviticus. So, I would also like to thank those who worked so hard for the night to be observed that we had here last evening, just upstairs in the senior center. I think we had 43 people there. Beautiful decorations on the tables, wonderful food. So, thanks very much for those who contributed so much to making that such a wonderful and enjoyable evening. By way of introduction to the sermon here, what is the name of this feast? It's not a trick question. The name of this feast is the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It's not the Feast of not eating leavened bread, or the Feast of no leavened bread. It is the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And why do I mention that? I mention it because this is a feast that is built around two primary symbols. Oops, excuse me here. Seems like something is disconnected. Hold on just a second here. I have a connector that was acting up just before services. And let's see if that works. Yeah, there we go. Okay, good. Now let's hope everything cooperates for the next 45 minutes, an hour, or whatever. But yes, as I was saying here, this is called the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It's built around two primary symbols, one of which is the symbol of leaven, which we are to avoid during this week-long period, and the other is the symbol of unleavened bread, which we are to eat during this period. Let's notice a few scriptures regarding this feast. There are a dozen or so. I'll only cover a few of them. But just by way of reminder, and see if you notice something in common with all of these passages here. Exodus 12, verses 17-20.

In all your dwellings you shall eat unleavened bread. And Exodus 13, verses 6 and 7.

In the seventh day there shall be a feast to the eternal. Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days. And no leavened bread shall be seen among you, nor shall leaven be seen among you in all your quarters, or all your property, your house there. Another one, Exodus 34, verse 18. The Feast of Unleavened Bread you shall keep.

Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread as I commanded you. And Leviticus 23, verse 6. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Eternal. Seven days you must eat unleavened bread. And the last one we'll mention here briefly, Numbers 28, verse 17.

And on the fifteenth day of this month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days. Now did you notice a pattern in here? A pattern that we are commended regularly to eat unleavened bread. During this seven-day period, is there a message here for us? Well, obviously so, since it's repeated so many times here in God's instruction. And again, this is reflected in the name of the Feast. The Feast of Unleavened Bread, not the Feast of Avoiding Leavened Bread.

Again, why do I make that distinction there? I do it because most of our focus in the past, most of the messages we've given, most of the messages I have given, have been on avoiding leavening. And there's certainly nothing wrong with that because that is a very important part of the Feast. It's absolutely critical that we understand that part of the symbolism of the Feast, of understanding the symbolism of leavening, and what it pictures, and what it means, and why we are to avoid that.

But in doing so, maybe we're somewhat neglecting the other side of the picture. And perhaps we haven't fully understood or appreciated the symbolism of the unleavened bread that we are to be partaking of during the Feast. And that brings us to the title of the sermon today, which is, Are You Eating the Unleavened Bread of Life? Are You Eating the Unleavened Bread of Life?

As we saw from the commands that I showed here earlier, there is at least as much emphasis on eating unleavened bread during this period as there is on avoiding leavened bread. And why is that? What are we to learn from eating unleavened bread during this Feast? Is there maybe part of a picture that we haven't fully understood or appreciated as much as we should?

I think there is, and it boils down to understanding what the symbolism of unleavened bread is, what it represents during this Feast of Unleavened Bread. Now, if I ask you to explain or say what leavening represents during this Feast, I think most of us would probably say correctly that it represents sin. And you'd be right. And if I ask you what unleavened bread represents during this seven-day period here, what would you say? Well, a number of you would probably answer, again, correctly, that it represents leaving Egypt in haste, of getting out of the symbolism of Egypt and sin, that it represents there, which is again true.

And you might also think of 1 Corinthians 5, verses 6 through 8. We'll read this quickly here where Paul says, and this is referring to the problem of sin there in the Corinthian church. And Paul writes in verse 6, So we see here that unleavening bread represents sin. And we consider the We hear that unleavened bread represents sincerity and truth. Sincerity being genuine intent. There in truth, of course, knowing what is right and doing what is right. Doing what God tells us to do.

Obeying Him. In other words, but how do we do that? How do we do that? And does unleavened bread represent more than that? Surely it does, because surely there is more to the Christian life than just sincerity and truth. I think we'd all understand that. So is there more to the symbolism of unleavened bread than this? One thing that struck me in preparing for the Passover this year is that in the Gospel of John, and this is quite unusual because in talking about Christ's last Passover there with the Apostles, do you realize that John doesn't talk about the bread and wine at all?

Have you ever noticed that? He talks about the foot washing, goes into great detail about the foot washing, how Christ set that example of service for us. But then he skips right over the part with the bread and the wine and goes into Christ's last instruction, running for several chapters there in the Book of John, which we read at the Passover every year there. So what's going on there? You can easily see that yourself. Just read through John 13-17. You'll see he skips over the bread and wine entirely.

Why does he do that? Why does he do that? Why does he skip over something that important without an explanation? Why does he do that? He gives us, again, details before and after. Have you ever wondered about that? Have you ever noticed that and wondered about it? One book that I was reading about the Gospel of John pointed out that when you read the other three Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it's like looking out at a field covered with snow, as we have a lot outside right now. You see three sets of footprints going across, side by side across the snowy field.

That's Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And then there's another set of footprints, which is John. And John isn't going in the footsteps of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. John is wandering over here and going over here and this kind of stuff. And he's never stepping in the same footprints as Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And that's a very good description of the Gospel of John because what he does is he goes into details and gives explanations that we don't see reflected in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

He covers new territory there, in other words. And he certainly does this in what he discusses. He does that at the last Passover there. He's the one who talks about the foot washing. He's the one who records all of the instruction that Jesus gave after that Passover was over there. So he's giving us different details, presenting a different perspective and filling in a lot of the blanks that Matthew, Mark, and Luke do not include. And I think, again, that's a good description of what John's Gospel is. And there is a reason for that, too. As we've covered in our backgrounds on the Gospels, the Book of John, the Gospel of John, was probably written, as near as we can tell, in the 80s to perhaps early 90s AD.

And this is about 30 years after Matthew, Mark, and Luke wrote their Gospels. And it seems clear to me that John, as he is writing his Gospel, has copies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke there. And he's deliberately avoiding covering the ground that they did, again, like the field of snow. And he's walking around here and there, covering details that Matthew, Mark, and Luke don't cover there. So when John writes about that last Passover, he doesn't talk about the meaning of the bread and wine, because Matthew, Mark, and Luke have already done that. But there's another reason that he doesn't talk about it there as well.

And that is because John has already talked in great detail about the meaning of the bread and wine. It's just that he's done it much earlier. He's done it back in John 6 of his Gospel. So let's turn over there and begin reading here. A very detailed chapter. We won't cover all of it. We'll hit the high points of it here. But John 6, and beginning in verse 1, and we'll read here about one of the greatest miracles of Jesus Christ, ministry. John 6 in verse 1, And Jesus has performed a number of miracles by this point in the Gospels.

He's healed people of fevers, he's healed a paralyzed man, he's healed people of leprosy, of crippled limbs, of demon possession, of blindness, and he's raised at least one person from the dead by this point. So as the story unfolds, we'll see that people have different motivations for following him. Some want to hear his teaching. He's a great rabbi. They want to learn what this rabbi is teaching. Some want to be healed, or want their relatives or friends to be healed.

And some, as we'll see, just want a free meal to be blunt about it. So verse 3, And Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. Now the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near.

So notice this timing here. It's just before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And this also helps us understand, to some extent, why there are so many people involved here. Five, ten, maybe fifteen thousand people where this miracle takes place. Why so many people? Why are they wandering around Galilee at this time? Well, they're there because the feast is about to begin, and people are packing up and going down to Jerusalem, where they're commanded to go to celebrate the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. That's why you have these large crowds here at this particular moment. Jesus was wriggly followed by large crowds, but probably not numbering in the thousands, as we see here.

So this is a factor that plays into this on several different levels. So keep this in mind, the timing of this just before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, as we see what Jesus Christ has to say here. So continuing on here in verse 5, Philip answered him, verse 7, So Philip, in essence, says to Jesus that, Hey, forty, fifty thousand dollars worth of bread isn't enough to give everybody in this crowd a piece of bread here.

So this gives us some idea the size of this crowd. How much bread could you buy with food? They are the equivalent of that. So then one of his disciples, verse 8, one of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to Jesus, There's a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are they among so many people? Then Jesus said, Make the people sit down. Now there was much grass in the land, and there was no grass in the land. The people sit down.

Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down and number about five thousand. And continuing on, verse 11, And Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those sitting down, and likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted. And verse 12, So when they were filled, filled to the full, is what the Greek word means here.

Just totally filled up. So when they were filled, he said to his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remained, so that nothing is lost. Therefore they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which were left over by those who had eaten. So this is, again, one of Jesus Christ's greatest miracles here. To multiply five loaves of barley and two small fish, the fish, incidentally, is probably a type of sardine. It's not a... that was common there in the Sea of Galilee.

So it gives you some idea of the size of the fish there. That's why it's called some small fish there. So he uses this to feed thousands of people. Now, skipping down to verse 22, there's some other factors here in this chapter we won't talk about. We come to the next day now, where the crowds are also seeking Jesus, and they find him near the village of Capernaum, several miles from where this previous miracle has taken place.

So verse 22, On the following day, when the people who were standing on the other side of the sea, saw that there was no other boat there except the one which his disciples had entered, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but his disciples had gone away alone. However, other boats came from Tiberias, another port city there on the Sea of Galilee, near the place where they ate bread after the Lord had given thanks. Verse 24, When the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they also got into boats and came to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.

What this is saying is all these people had been over about five, six miles away on another part of the shore, the Sea of Galilee, they realized Jesus isn't there, that he's probably in Capernaum. So they start walking and hopping in boats to go over and seek Jesus again, at the village of Capernaum there. Verse 25, When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here? And Jesus answered them and said, Most assuredly I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw the signs or the miracles, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.

So Jesus gives a rebuke to some of those people who are following him around just because they want a free meal. Hey, it beats working! But that was the motivation, unfortunately, of some of the people there. So some were coming because of Jesus' teaching. They really wanted to learn from him, some for the miracles and some just for the free food that he had provided. And now we see something that happens quite often in Christ's ministry, that he uses the particular setting or the particular circumstances, or both here, to impart a very vital teaching lesson.

And he says in verse 27, Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal of approval, his stamp of approval, you might say, on Jesus, on him. So what Jesus is telling them there is they need to get their priorities straight, that they should focus not on the food that is temporary, like the barley loaves and the fish they'd had the day before, which would hold them over to their next meal, but that's all. But instead, they need to focus on something much bigger than that, something far more important, that rather than focus on filling their bellies, they need to focus on filling the spiritual vacuum that exists within the lives of every human being, and that only God can fill.

That's what he's telling them here. And we here also see something else that we know and understand, certainly that eternal life is God's gift, that it's nothing that we can do to deserve us. But notice what he says here, do not labor for the food which perishes, but labor for the food which endures to everlasting life. What he's saying is it takes effort. It takes effort on our part to receive that gift. We have to labor for that food that leads to eternal life. And his point is that eternal life is something that has to be nurtured, that has to be worked on, that has to be developed, that we have to strive for and put effort into if we are to receive that gift from God.

Continuing to verse 28. Then they said to Jesus, What shall we do that we may work the works of God? Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he sent. Verse 30, Therefore they said to him, What sign will you perform then that we may see it and believe you? What work will you do? So we see here again that some people are following him around because they want to see a sign. They want to see a miracle.

They've heard of Jesus' reputation as a miracle worker and they want to see that. And of course he has just performed a great miracle just the previous day by feeding thousands of people, by multiplying the barley loaves and the fishes. Continuing, verse 31, Our fathers ate the manna in the desert. As it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Now, why did they bring this up?

Moses is giving them manna in the desert. Well, because what had happened the previous day? It's kind of a very similar miracle to what had happened with a manna, because Jesus is out in a wilderness area, an uninhabited area there. And He miraculously provides food to feed thousands of people there. So it's kind of like the miracle of the manna on a smaller scale, and with bread and fish instead of manna from heaven.

So I think that's what's prompting them to make this note here. So maybe they wanted Him to repeat the miracle of the bread and wine there with whatever people around this day. Or maybe they were asking Him to perform the same miracle that Moses did, because they knew there was to be a prophet like Moses who would be the Messiah. So maybe they're asking Him to do that, to recreate the miracle of manna there.

I think that's probably part of what they're thinking. And in so doing, then He would prove that He is the Messiah. So this is a little bit of the background that is going on here, continuing in verse 32.

So Jesus plays off a couple of things here. One, He plays off the fact that the Feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread is coming up. Going to start here in just a few days. And then He plays also off their statement that God had given the Israelites manna there in the wilderness for 40 years. So He comes back with a stronger statement, and He challenges these people to essentially either put up or shut up. Are you going to believe Me or are you not? What are you here for, in other words? So He first says that it wasn't Moses who gave the manna, but it was God who gave the manna, not Moses.

And further, He says that manna was only symbolic of something that was much greater, much better, that also comes from God, and that is the true bread from heaven that would sustain them because it comes from God. And then He says, verse 33, For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. So He says that God is going to give something that is much better than physical manna. He's going to give the bread of God that gives life to the world.

Who did God give the manna to? Give it just to Israel. But He says God is going to give the bread of life to the world, not just the Israelites, but to the Gentiles. Also, God has something much bigger in mind. Verse 34, Then they said to Him, Lord, give us this bread always. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.

And He speaks here with authority, claiming to be the bread from heaven. Notice the three different phrases that He's used here. First, He talked about bread from heaven. And then He says, bread from God. And then He says, bread of life. And this bread that God would provide would do much more than satisfy just their physical hunger. It would satisfy the much deeper spiritual hunger that, again, exists in the lives of every single human being.

A hunger that can only be filled by God. And as I've said before many times in going through our series of messages on the Gospels, we need to understand what these words meant to the people who are hearing them at that time if we're going to properly understand what they mean for us today. Because we tried to read into that culture through our perspective.

We're going to get it wrong most of the time here. So what did this mean? What did bread mean to the people of that day? When Jesus says He's the bread of life, He's the bread of God, He's the bread from heaven. What did that mean to people there? What did they understand that? Well, first of all, bread was very much a staple of their diet. It was probably the most important staple of their diet.

It was eaten at virtually every meal, probably every meal. It was so common that the term break bread, which we see in the Bible several times, means to take a meal. Because you did that by taking your loaf of bread and breaking it, ripping it into pieces, in other words. So everybody could have a part of that. Also, the words bread and food were virtually synonymous in that culture of the day there. Also, you may find this a little bit interesting, but eating utensils were not common in that part of the world at that time. What you ate with was a piece of bread.

You see this reflected in the accounts of the Gospels of the Last Passover there, where they are dipping their bread into a bowl of things. They essentially use that piece of bread as kind of a spoon or a sop to get the food on and bring it to their mouth. So a piece of bread, they weren't using forks, they weren't using knives, they weren't using spoons. They would use bread as they were eating utensils in that period of time there.

Also, if you went on a journey anywhere, what did you take? You took a little bag with you, and in that bag you'd have some bread with you, because it wouldn't spoil, at least not for quite a while. You'd also probably put in some cheese, something like that. So that was a very important part of their diet at that time. Also, for the women of that day, they spent a large part of their time, because bread was eaten at every meal, they spent a large portion of their day doing nothing but grinding grain into flour from which they could then bake bread several times a day.

So bread was absolutely essential, a very critical part of their life. It meant everything to the people of that day. Bread was the biggest part of their diet again. Bread sustained their lives. Bread meant life, because if you didn't have bread, you didn't have anything to eat, and you were going to starve to death.

That's also why part of the Lord's Prayer is what? Give us this day our daily bread. It was that important to them there. Bread was absolutely critical to people there, and that is why bread is actually mentioned more than 60 times, just in the Gospels, just in those four books of the Bible. They even had a special prayer that they prayed before every meal. Baruch atah adonai, Elohino, milich ha'alam, hamotzi lechim min haretz.

That was a prayer they prayed before every meal. Translated into English, it is, blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who gives us bread from the earth. Again, bread meaning synonymous for food, a synonym for food at that time. It's rather interesting that this prayer that they prayed before every meal was also prayed as the Jews. You probably remember reference to the wave sheaf offering. When did the wave sheaf offering take place? It took place right at sunset of the weekly Sabbath that fell during the feast on leaven bread. So that would be coming up here in a few days.

What they would do, they would go out into a field near Jerusalem and they would cut the grain that would then be used for the wave sheaf offering that would be cooked and offered to God there. As they cut that grain there, right at sunset there on that weekly Sabbath during the days of the leaven bread, they would pray this prayer, barak atah adonai, Elohino, milich ha'alam, hamotzi lechim min haretz. Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe, who gives us bread from the earth. What was happening on that Sabbath right before they did this?

Jesus Christ is resurrected from the earth. God is giving them the bread of life out of the earth who had been buried three days and three nights earlier. Isn't that amazing? That they are thanking God for giving them bread from the earth as Jesus Christ is resurrected inside the tomb. Bread coming from the earth, from the grave, from the tomb there. One of those amazing little details. So notice again the terms that we covered that Jesus calls himself. Calls himself the bread from heaven, the bread of God and the bread of life.

And what he's saying here is that just his physical bread is critical to our physical life, to our physical existence. That he, as the bread of God, as the bread from heaven, as the bread of life, is essential for our spiritual life. For our spiritual health and well-being. And that it is so essential that without him we do not have and cannot have eternal life. That's what he's saying here. Skipping down to verse 47 of John 6, skip over some other portions here.

And he says here, Most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in me has everlasting life. Now in the culture of that day, belief or having faith in something meant something very different from us today. We believe in things there on an intellectual level, but that belief really, for most people, doesn't affect their lives. It doesn't affect how they live, what they do, what they think. But to the people of that day, believing and acting on that belief were inseparable.

Because if you believe something, you had to act on that belief and live accordingly. If you believe that God existed, that wasn't just a nice thought that you had in your head. No, that belief and that fact that you believe God existed guided everything that you did. Because if you believed in God, you did your best to obey Him with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Because that is what God commanded them to do. Deuteronomy 6, 5, You shall love the Lord with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your strength.

So just believing in something wasn't a concept that they even believed, you might say. Because if you believe something, you had to act on that. That's why the Apostle James later on says that faith without works is dead. Or he also says even the demons believe, and they tremble because believing in something, having faith in something, meant that you ordered your life around that belief and that faith.

That that belief and faith in something required action. It required commitment. It required that you live out that faith and that belief in everything that you did. So if you believed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, that meant that you did everything in your power to become just like Him in every way. Because that was the whole point. That was the whole point of being a disciple, a talmid, of Jesus Christ, of a rabbi. Because you didn't just want to know what your rabbi knew, you wanted to become like Him in every way. That's what belief meant. Belief in somebody, in that culture, in that day. And only in that way, Jesus said, would we have everlasting life.

Verse 48 here, again, continuing, he says, I AM the bread of life. What's he talking about? He's talking about salvation here. We know that all of God's festivals, all of His holy days, talk about what? What do they portray? They portray God's plan of salvation. How He's going to bring the maximum number of people to salvation, to be a part of His kingdom, to be a part of His family, to live with Him forever.

And a part of that plan of salvation is the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It's a key part of that plan because God's plan for salvation begins with what? Begins with what's represented by the Passover. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ, whose blood covers the penalty for our sins. Because if we don't have that, no other part of God's plan can take effect. That's the foundational step. That's the first step. That Jesus Christ had to die to provide the way for us to have our sins forgiven and to be reconciled to God.

What's the next step? The next step is represented by this Feast of Unleavened Bread. That, yes, we have to remove leaven, picturing sin from our lives. But how do we do that? How do we remove sin out of our lives? Well, the way we do that is by putting unleavened bread, the bread of life, into our lives. It's like getting the air out of a glass.

How do you get air out of a glass? Well, the easiest way is pour something in, and the air is displaced, and it's no longer there. And it's the same way with removing the leaven of sin and unrighteousness out of our lives. We do that by replacing it with the bread of life, of Jesus Christ within our lives. Continuing, verse 49, Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. In other words, a lot of good the manna did them. A lot of good it did them because God performed great miracles.

And bringing the Israelites out of Egypt and providing for them in the wilderness for 40 years gave the miracle of the bread every day for that 40 years, except on the Fridays when He gave them a double portion. And none fell on the Sabbath to prove them. 40 years of miracles, which day is God's Sabbath day?

And the deed to keep it holy there. But again, they didn't believe. And they were all dead. And the thousands who had watched Jesus perform this miracle of multiplying the bread and the fishes the previous day, they also would die unless they learned the spiritual lesson of the true bread of life.

The bread from heaven. Continuing, verse 50.

Verse 52.

Then Jesus said to them, Most assuredly I say to you, Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. Verse 55. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.

As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on me will live because of me. And notice this phrase, feeds on me. He who feeds on me. What does that mean? That's not talking about just taking a little symbolic piece of unleavened bread, which we do at the Passover, or whatever amount of unleavened bread we take during this feast of unleavened bread. No. What it means is we have to feed on Jesus Christ. We have to feed on him. That means we have to seek him. We have to hunger and thirst for him. And if we don't do that, as he says here, we have no life in us. We have no life in us if we're not feeding on him.

Verse 58, This is the bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers ate the manna and are dead. But he who eats this bread, this bread of life, this bread from heaven, this bread from God, will live forever.

Will live forever. Not might live forever, maybe live forever, will live forever. If you eat that bread of life. Now what Jesus says here freaks out a lot of people. Totally freaks them out. Just a few verses later, down in verse 66, we won't read there. But John tells us that a lot of people, after hearing these hard sayings, didn't follow Jesus anymore. They turned away. They couldn't deal with it. They couldn't handle this. There's no question that this is a hard saying. But what did Jesus mean when he says that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood?

Well again, we need to understand this in the culture, in the context of that day, which is very, very different from us today. We obviously understand, with 2000 years of hindsight now, that he's talking about the symbolism of the Passover. Of the bread and the wine. Which again, Matthew, Mark and Luke talked about that earlier. John is telling us, explaining what they mean here. So he doesn't have to later on when he talks about that last Passover here. So we understand that with hindsight that he's talking about the symbols of the Passover.

Of the bread being symbolic of his body, which is bruised and beaten for us. And of the wine being symbolic of his blood, that is shed for us. But there's another layer of meaning and understanding here. As we see going through the Gospels, it's like an archaeological dig. There's layers and layers there. And as you dig out one level and see what's there, you see glimpses of other things beneath.

You start digging deeper, you find more. You dig deeper, you find out more. You find levels and levels and levels of understanding there in the Gospels for us. And this is true in this case, too. Because how were sacrifices carried out at the temple at that time? How would people who hear Jesus talk about eating his flesh, how would they have understood that?

Well, think about the different types of sacrifices. And we have misconceptions about a lot of those. But there were four main types of sacrifices carried out at the temple. In that day, there was what was called the grain or the meal offering, where the offeror would bring a certain amount of grain or flour, and part of it would be burned on the altar, and the rest would be given to the priest.

The part that's burned on the altar is symbolic in a way of God eating that. That was the way it was viewed. God, it's burned, so God has eaten it there. You're giving part of your grain, your harvest, to God there. We won't go into detail about a lot of these. Just want to give you an overview of it. Oops, excuse me, hit the... There was also what is called the sin or the guilt offering, which was, in contrast to grain, it was an animal, a goat, sheep, dove, bullock, whatever.

And part of that animal is burned, again, given to God, and part of it is then eaten by the priests there. It's where a large part of their diet, their meals came from, the sacrifices that were given of the grain and the animals there, given as sacrifice. There was also, third type, the burnt offering. We tend to think that nearly everything was a burnt offering, that everything is burned on the altar. No, this was just one type of offering that was completely burned, completely dedicated to God, given everything to God.

But the fourth type is what I want to talk about here, and that is what is called the peace... Excuse me, I have a typo there. It should be peace or fellowship offering there. And what did this symbolize? Well, again, it is an animal sacrifice in which part of the animal is given to God. It is burned on the altar. But the rest of the animal is not given to the priest.

It is cooked and eaten by the worshipper, by the person bringing the animal. And it is shared with him and his guests. And what did it represent? It was done to represent, and this is one reason it's called the peace offering, it was to represent peace and reconciliation with God. And the way you reconcile with somebody that you had a dispute with, in that culture, in that day, is you would sit down and share a meal with them. And this is what this was, this peace or fellowship offering.

You took your offering in, the priest slaughtered it there, part of it is burned, given to God, and the rest, you sit down and enjoy a meal to represent you being reconciled to God. And at peace with God, you ate a meal with him. There, in other words.

And it was actually because most people could not afford meat in that day, that was the only way the average Jew of the day got a good steak, or a good slice of meat, was to have this peace or fellowship offering there, because he would then eat it with his friends or family there. So it was a very special thing.

And this was the only sacrifice in which the offerr partook of that sacrifice there. Again, it's the peace or fellowship offering, which represents peace and reconciliation with God. How do we have peace and reconciliation to God? We have it through our peace offering, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Who gave his life that we might be reconciled to God. So what is Jesus saying when he tells people they must eat his flesh? Well, in an offering, what type of offering could they eat part of the sacrifice's flesh? The peace offering. The fellowship offering there. So he offered himself as that sacrifice, and we symbolically eat of that sacrifice at the Passover to show that we are now reconciled and at peace with God. We're no longer separated from him, cut off by our sins.

He completes the picture of what is being portrayed there. What a beautiful picture. What an awesome picture there. So yes, we have to eat Jesus Christ's flesh, because he is our peace, our fellowship offering with God. And when we do that, we are at peace with and reconciled to God. And again, though, but that went over the heads of the people there.

They had freaked him out, because in their mind, Jesus wasn't talking about the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, but he was... they viewed it and it freaked him out because they're thinking human sacrifice there.

We can't eat human flesh, but they didn't understand that he's speaking and teaching symbolically to teach them of a greater spiritual truth. An awesome spiritual truth. And in the same way, when he talked about drinking his blood, they also freaked out because they know that the Old Testament repeatedly commands them to not eat a drink or eat blood, much less human blood.

Let's look at a few scriptures here. Leviticus 17 in verse 10. God says, I will set my face against that person who eats blood, for the life of the flesh is in the blood. Another one, Genesis 9 in verse 4. But you shall not eat flesh with its life that is its blood. Notice a common theme through these passages here. Two more. Deuteronomy 12 in verse 23.

Be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life. And last, Leviticus 17 verse 14. You shall not eat the blood of any flesh, for the life of all flesh is its blood. So notice why they are not to consume any blood, because the life is in the blood. In that time, they would have equated life and blood together, and people would have understood that quite well, because in that society, if perhaps you had had an accident, cut your leg with an axe, or cut your hand with a knife, or something like that, you started bleeding.

If somebody were injured in battle, which was all too common in that part of the world, you got wounded and you started bleeding, and your life is leaving you. As you bleed out, in the sacrificial system, which they were all familiar with, going to the temple several times a year, seeing the sacrifices, they would see the animals have their throat cut, and the blood leaves the body, and the life leaves the body.

So to them, life and blood were the same thing. The life is in the blood. They're very familiar with that. Very familiar with that connection, that concept there, because again, it's spelled out in Scripture. And they're not supposed to eat blood, so it was abhorrent to them that Jesus Christ would tell them that they need to drink His blood.

But what did He mean? What did He mean when He says that? Did He mean they're literally to drink His blood? Well, of course not. We know that. We know that He's speaking figuratively, that He's speaking symbolically here. So what does this mean then, figuratively and symbolically, when Jesus tells us we have to drink His blood? Well, one meaning is the one we covered two nights ago at the Passover, that we take that small bit of wine there that symbolizes His blood, which is shed for us, and we accept that sacrifice, we acknowledge that sacrifice, and we commit ourselves to that relationship, that covenant that we have with Him so that we can receive God's forgiveness.

But think about these other Scriptures here that talk about the life being in the blood. Who inspired those words to be written? The one who became Jesus Himself. So what did it mean there? Is there another layer of meaning to Christ's words?

About the life being in the blood, and you have to drink my blood. What does that mean? Again, let's look back here at John 6 in verse 53 again.

Most assuredly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. Again, there's no equivocating here. He says that unless we eat His flesh and drink His blood, we have no life. But on the other hand, if we do, we have eternal life, and He promises to raise us up in the resurrection of the righteous at His return.

Now this word abides here is interesting here. It means lives in, or remains in, or dwells in. So this is saying, Jesus is saying here, that He who eats His flesh and drinks His blood remains, or lives in, or dwells in Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ lives in, or dwells or remains in Him, or her. That's what He says here. So if blood is equated with life, and the one who became Jesus Christ is the one who inspired those passages, are we seeing another layer of meaning here? Yes, we are. What Jesus is telling us is really pretty simple. What He's telling us is that we have to take His life and make it a very part of the very center of our being, of everything that we do, of everything that we are. He says we must take His life into our life, so that our life and His life become one and the same, become intertwined, intermeshed there. That's what He's saying when He says, He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides, or lives in, or remains, or dwells in Me, and I will abide, or live in, and dwell in Him. It means our lives are so intertwined that they are becoming one, in every way.

Verse 57, As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so He who feeds on Me will live because of Me. And again, feeds on Me is not just the little bit of unleavened bread we take at Passover or during the stays of unleavened bread. No, we have to feed on Jesus Christ all the time. We have to be actively seeking Him, hungering and thirsting for Him every day. How long is the feast of unleavened bread? How many days? Seven days. What does seven symbolize in the Bible? Represents completion, as in the seven days of the recreation there in Genesis. Represents completion there. So we eat unleavened bread for seven days to symbolize that we are taking Jesus Christ into our lives all the time.

All the time. Being completed by Him in us. That's one of the great meanings of this feast. Verse 58, again, this is the bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers ate the manna, and our dead, He who eats this bread, will live forever. Again, He doesn't equivocate. He doesn't mince words. If you want to live forever, you have to partake of this bread of life, which is Jesus Christ. You have to make Him a key part of your life. What does that mean? How do we put that into practice? We've probably all heard the term internalizing something or to internalize something. Think about it this way, to use kind of a rough analogy here, but you all have a Bible probably there on your lap today. Contains many examples that are written there for us to learn from. But if we don't read that book, if we don't study that book, what good does it do? It's no better than any other book that's stuck on our coffee table or stuck up on our bookshelf, just gathering dust. It doesn't do us any good, doesn't do anyone any good. But if you take that book, and if you read that book, and if you study that book, and you ask God to help you learn what you need to know from that book, and you make it a part of your life, and you make it a part of your thinking every minute of every day, then what are you doing? You are internalizing that book. You are making it a part of your thinking. You're making it a part of your actions, yourself, how you live. That's what I mean by internalizing it. So long as it's just out there on the shelf, not used, it doesn't do anybody any good. You have to read it. You have to study it. You have to make it a part of your life. That's internalizing it. And when you do that, when you start incorporating that into your thinking, you start remembering the stories. You start remembering the lessons, understanding the lessons of the stories. You start remembering the Bible verses that you're reading, because you're feeding your heart and feeding your mind on Scripture by reading and studying it. Regularly, you're feeding it. You're feeding on it. You're internalizing it. It's becoming a part of you. But it takes time. It takes effort. You have to labor to do that. It doesn't happen miraculously. Although God certainly can, it does, through His Spirit bring to remembrance, as we read there in the last few chapters of John, what Christ said the Comforter of the Holy Spirit would do, would bring to remembrance the things that you have heard, and God's Spirit does that when we read and study His Word. Brings those things to mind when we need them, when we're dealing with particular situations like that.

But you have to read it and study it first. Because God can't help you remember. God, through His Spirit, can't help you remember what you never read or studied in the first place.

So you've got to study it. So how does that apply to our feeding on and eating of the unleavened bread that is Jesus Christ? Well, again, we have to take Him into our lives. I've talked many times before, several times before, in the Gospels classes about the relationship of a rabbi and his disciples, his students, his Talmadim, there in the first century. And the reason I keep bringing that up is because it's something we really need to understand. If we're going to understand what's going on in the Gospels, if we understand what Jesus Christ wants from us and what God the Father wants from us. Because again, the point of becoming a disciple, a follower, was not to learn what the rabbi knew. It was to become like the rabbi, like your teacher, like your master, like your Lord, in every way.

You wanted to become like Him. You wanted to model your life after Him.

And because of that, how did they do it? How did that system work? Well, you were with the rabbi 24-7. You ate your meals with Him. You traveled with Him. You journeyed with Him. You slept with Him. You ate with Him. You talked with Him. You studied with Him. Everything you did, you spent your 24-7 with Him. Because you wanted to become just like Him.

And when we are called to be disciples, what does Christ say? I didn't have this in my notes, but Matthew 28, verses 18 and 19. Go therefore to all the world, and what? And make disciples, make tau Madim of the nations. Make people who want to become just like me, just as you want to become just like me. And how do we teach other people to be disciples if we are not disciples ourselves? It can't be done. Absolutely can't be done.

How badly do you want to be a disciple?

How badly do you want to be a follower of Jesus Christ? How badly do you want to be just like Him?

I share with you a quote I learned from a teacher, from whom I've learned a lot of the stuff that I'm sharing with us in the Gospels class. And this teacher had gone to a seminar by a Jewish scholar, lived in Israel. He's since deceased, but he's probably the greatest scholar on the Gospels, even though he doesn't believe in Jesus as the Messiah. He's Jewish. But this Jewish scholar said, talking in a seminar to a bunch of Christians, he said, What is it with you Christians? You say that you want to follow Jesus. You say that you want to be like Jesus, but you don't know what you're talking about.

He said, if you claim to be a Christian, but if you aren't reading the Gospels, all four of the Gospels, at least once a month, you are a liar!

You don't know what discipleship is. You're a pretender.

How badly do we want to be like Jesus Christ?

How badly do we feel the need for the bread of life?

By that standard, how do we measure up? How much are we eating from the unleavened bread of life?

The days of unleavened bread are supposed to change us. They're supposed to change us from a life of leaven, the leaven of sin, to an unleavened life filled with Jesus Christ. That means we have to accept Him as the final authority in our lives. That's what the Apostle Paul is talking about in Galatians 2, verse 20, when he says, I have been crucified with Christ, crucified put to death with Jesus Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, fully internalized, in other words. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. It's a very profound statement. It took me years to figure out what's going on here, what it means to have Christ living in us. But again, it's talking about us internalizing Him and making Him a part of our lives in everything that we do. It's allowing God's Spirit to work with us and shape us and form us to become like Jesus Christ in every way. It's becoming the new man that Paul talks about in Romans, Romans 6, when he talks about baptism so much.

You put the old man to death and you come up a new man, a new man modeled. After whom? After Jesus Christ. He isn't some distant figure who lived 2,000 years ago. He's somebody who's very real, very immediate, very accessible, who wants to be our friend, who wants to be our companion. And that's why He died for us. He died for us so that He could have that kind of role in our lives, to be our friend and our companion. That's why He's our high priest and intercessor now, because He wants us to be in His kingdom.

That's why He's returning to earth as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, so He can transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorified Spirit body and to give us eternal life, to live with Him forever. That's why He wants us to partake of Him as the bread of life, the bread from heaven, the bread of God.

So how do we do that? I'd like to leave us with five points here. Five takeaways. Each of these is very short.

How do we partake of that true bread of life? One, realize that just as we need physical bread or food to sustain our physical lives, we need the unleavened bread of life, Jesus Christ, to nourish us spiritually.

Won't turn there and review John 6 again. We've gone through that pretty thoroughly today. But go back and reread that.

Talks all about Jesus Christ and His own words of how He is the bread of life and how much we need to be partaking of that, represented by the unleavened bread that we partake of this week during the days of unleavened bread.

Point two, learn about Him. Learn about Him. Again, that's the point of our studies on the Gospels. To learn about Him.

God gave us four books of the Bible, the four Gospels, to learn about Jesus Christ, what He is like.

And how can we become like Him if we're not studying that? That's why He gave us those books.

And again, His disciples, His Talmadim, lived with Him 24-7, so they could become just like Him.

And how do we do that unless we spend time with Him?

How much time do we spend with Him? An hour or two a week? A hour or two a month? A few hours a year?

Again, are we a follower or are we a pretender? You can tell by how much time you're spending with Him.

Third point, study His teachings.

And again, that's another reason for our detailed studies on the Gospels. What did He teach?

What did He say? What did He do? We're spending a great deal of time doing that.

But it's more than just the Gospels. More than that, because as Jesus Himself said in Matthew 4 and verse 4, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. By every word.

Genesis to Revelation. Who inspired it all? Jesus Christ. The Alpha. The Omega.

We've talked a lot about bread today and how there's more to life than pursuing where our next meal is coming from. But it's far more important for us to fill ourselves with the Word of God than with physical bread.

And even more important is to fill ourselves with the bread of life. Jesus Christ.

Fourth takeaway point, make His priorities your priorities.

A couple of verses here won't comment on them much, but John 4 and verse 34.

Jesus said to them, my food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work.

And that kept Him going, in other words. Another one, John 6 and verse 38.

For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me.

So again, what is most important in your life? How well do your priorities line up with His priorities?

It's really a very simple test.

What do you spend your time on? How do you spend your time?

You'll have to answer that for yourself. You'll be accountable for that.

And the last point, point five, is to lay down your life for others as He laid down His life for you.

Lay down your life for others as He laid down His life for you.

Two passages, John 15 and verse 13.

Again, this is from Christ's last instruction to His apostles.

Greater love has no one than this than to lay down one's life for His friends.

And another one, 1 John 3 and verse 16.

By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us.

And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

What is our purpose in this life? What are we called to do?

What are we called to be? Why did God create us?

He created us to become like Him.

And like our elder brother, Jesus Christ, who was the greatest servant of all.

And what are we going to do when we're resurrected at the resurrection of the just, at Christ's return?

We're going to be servants.

We're going to spend the next thousand years teaching other people about the greatness of God and of His plan and the opportunity to be a part of His family and to live with Him forever.

We're not called to lord it over others, but to serve them, to teach them God's way.

I'll close now in Colossians 1 and verse 27.

Paul says here, to them, talking about the saints of God, mentioned in the previous verse, to them God will to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles.

And what mystery is this? The mystery is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

What's this saying? It's saying that one of God's greatest mysteries and one of God's greatest miracles is Christ in you.

Christ in you, Jesus Christ's life in ours, our life in His, intertwined, intermingled, becoming one.

And that's why we eat the unleavened bread during this Feast of Unleavened Bread. Yes, we remove the leavening of sin and unrighteousness, but we do that by replacing it with the unleavened bread of life, Jesus Christ.

And when we partake of that unleavened bread of life, making His life a part of our own, the result is what we see here.

The hope of glory.

The hope of glory, a glorious transformation to ultimately become like Jesus Christ as He is now.

As the glorified Son of God, burning like the sun in its brightness.

And that's what we'll be when we're like Him in every way, when we're transformed into God's sons and His daughters to become a part of His kingdom and His family forever.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread is all about salvation.

It was about Israel's salvation and deliverance from Egypt.

And it's about our salvation and our deliverance through partaking of the true bread of life, Jesus Christ.